Jakarta – The House of Representatives team responsible for the "anti-pornography and pornoaction bill" have changed its name to the "pornography bill".

"After the team removed the terms 'anti-' and 'pornoaction', the bill's name is now officially the pornography bill," Balkan Kaplale, who heads the special committee for the bill's formulation, said Wednesday at the House.

"Terms and conditions for pornoaction are now stipulated in one chapter of the bill since the essence of pornoaction is now part of pornography," Balkan was quoted by Detik.com news portal as saying.

The bill, he said, also encompassed chapters that ruled on child protection and criminal law supporting that protection.

The team has also simplified the content of the bill, cutting it from 19 chapters to 18 and from 93 articles to 30.

According to Balkan, the team will submit the changes to a plenary session by next week and hand it over to House leaders for perusal by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. "I expect deliberations soon between the government and House lawmakers to scrutinize every article of the bill," Balkan said.

The bill caused a great deal of controversy last year, with groups of artists, moderate Muslims, religious minorities and women's rights activists demanding that it be heavily revised or dropped altogether, while the Indonesian Ulemas Council and conservative Muslims backed it.

Despite the heated public debate, the House is continuing to deliberate the bill. Those who oppose the bill believe it attempts to eradicate pluralism in the country.

Earlier, Ratna Sarumpaet, who coordinated the Alliance of Unity in Diversity Advocates in a march protesting the bill last year, reiterated that the alliance was against pornography, but opposed a bill that would allow the state to force citizens to behave according to the norms of a certain religion.

Ratna, who has served as a director of the Jakarta Institute of the Arts, regarded the bill as an attempt to make Indonesia an Islamic state. She charged that the bill had to do with the issuance of sharia bylaws in certain regions.

According to Ratna, the alliance had raised this matter with the (Islamic-based) Prosperous Justice Party faction (in the House) but they were tight-lipped. She said she was of the opinion that their silence meant "yes".